central saint martins
BA Culture Criticism and Curation 2016
BA (Honours) Culture, Criticism and Curation
is part of the Culture and Enterprise programme. It gives you a very wide-ranging, humanities-based arts education. Content spans the history and theory of art, design, architecture, fashion, film, popular culture, performance, media and literature. For our final year, we work full time on two major projects, the Dissertation and London Projects.
Wanda Banks
wanda-lee@hotmail.co.uk
Dissertation: To what extent are emerging art markets in the United Arab Emirates sustainable? A study of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah - Evaluating the relevance of newly established institutional framework such as art fairs, biennials, auction houses, galleries and museums, with a focus on cultural sustainability, this thesis shows how influences such as official cultural strategies, the Emirate’s Royal Families and the battle between commercial and non-commercial goals have affected the development of the UAE’s art market. London Project: Fashion Temporal - An online platform dedicated to increasing the discourse around sustainable fashion. Seeking to initiate collaborative discourse between students, graduates and industry professionals from within the fashion industry with those who comment on its forms and structures from an economic, business and political stance. The website will act as a host for academic and creative text, visual fashion imagery, video interviews and panel discussions.
Miriam Barosco
miriam.barosco@hotmail.it www.futuro-europa.it/author/barosco
Dissertation: The Role of the Museum and Its Displays in Constructing Past Histories and Redressing the Same in Contemporary Museology - In the light of colonial criticism and of today’s discipline of Museum Studies, the text challenges the mission with which two different national, ethnographic institutions invested themselves. London Project: Cockney Pasticcio - Notably as an Italian, I took on the task of coming up with a selection of ordinary objects which capture Cockney past and present identity. According to General Pitt Rivers’ late-Victorian collecting practice and museological ideas, a dense display of specimens will be hosted in a Victorian vitrine, which will tour two different locations.
Robynne Collins
racollins68@gmail.com
Dissertation: The Cultural Role of Madness in the Public Reception of the Arts - A study of figures widely associated with mental struggles and an exploration of how public assumptions such associations can affect our interpretation of an artist’s work. London Project: Pink Freud - Two days of music workshops promoting the benefits of creative expression on our well-being. The workshops offer an experience for young people to channel their creative energies in a collaborative setting, providing a space to interact with like-minded individuals whilst simultaneously discovering their own unique voice.
Allyne Costa
allynebbcosta@gmail.com
Dissertation: The Cycle of Social Exclusion in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro: to what extent are participatory art and community projects successful in changing the current situation? - My dissertation was about the cycle of social exclusion that exists in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro due to discrimination. Exploring the theories behind their situation and marginalisation I analysed how locals and artists attempt to face it through community art projects. London Project: Mind the Mind Festival - Mind the Mind Festival was my London project to build peer to peer mental health support at UAL, it is a week long festival taking place mostly at CSM with fun activities as well as lectures from psychiatrists and alumni in order to maximise awareness of mental health issues that may arise during the years we spend at university.
Nadia Katia Cuvelier nkcuvelier@gmail.com
Dissertation: My dissertation discussed the memorialization of the Cambodian genocide in Phnom Penh, in order to identify the ethical responsibilities of a secondary witness. It examined memory theory concepts, in particular collective and site memory, as a means to outline the difficulties of memorializing trauma, then later using those theses to thoroughly analyse S-21 and the killing fields. London Project: For my London Project, I organised Encore, the alternative press show. Encore was the inclusive platform that celebrated the diversity and talent of the graduating BA fashion students of Central Saint Martins. I thought it was important to create a platform that allowed everyone to equally showcase their craftsmanship, as according to Malcolm Gladwell, success is greatly influenced by opportunity and legacy.
Gabriela Davies
gabi.davies@me.com www.displacementproject.co.uk
Dissertation: How have the visual arts challenged the Brazilian Military Dictatorship? - An investigation on the approach of the visual arts, and the development towards a participative art form as a way to challenge the political scenario of Brazil between 1964-1985. Artworks by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticia, Cildo Meireles, Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, Carlos Vergara and Carlos Zilio were investigated as a way to understand the mindset of the artists working at the time London Project:: (dis)placement An open-call project for artists and designers on the topic of displacement. Developed throughout different stages - the submission and selection process, crowd-funding, and exhibition - (dis)placement is an attempt to create a platform for different types of artistic and non-artistic collaboration as a way to incentivize contemporary art.
Robyn Pitts
robynspost@msn.com www.displacementproject.co.uk
My dissertation looked at traces of modernity in 1920s dress, and questioned whether fashion in the 1920s liberated women. Similarly, my interest in fashion history and textiles inspired my London Project; ‘Sewing Underground’. This was a plan for a two-day workshop where participants could reinterpret the tube map through the medium of textiles.
Sidonie Jebsen
siddijebsen@mac.com
Dissertation: My dissertation explores the development of artistic production during the Cultural Revolution, based on Mao Zedong’s political changes in the People’s Republic of China, and focuses on the breakthrough avant-garde movement of The Stars artists in 1979, arguing for their significance in the establishment of Chinese contemporary art. London Project: The Curating Kids The Curating Kids is an alternative audio guide for the Tate Modern created by children targeting adults, giving them a fresh and alternative perspective on the modern artworks in Tate Modern.
Sasha Morse
sasha.morse@btopenworld.com
Dissertation: The Legacies of the Spectatorship of Pain - The work of photojournalist James Nachtwey and the effect of atrocity photography on post- Holocaust collective memory. An investigation into how the photographs of the Holocaust have a set a precedent for the way in which contemporary atrocity photographs are viewed and distributed. London Project: London’s Lost Lido’s - By the end of the 1930s there were 68 Lido’s in London. Today there are 11. The Lido without a Lido will be a series of cultural events that celebrate and investigate London’s Lost Lidos. These events will be set against the backdrop of a wider project to bring pop-up pools to site of lost lidos across London, alongside cultural events and in collaboration with the Make a Splash campaign that teaches children how to swim for free.
Melody Micmacher
melody.micmacher@gmail.com
Dissertation: Clothing and symbolism on the screen: Redefining narrative codes in fashion film - My dissertation explored the relationship between clothing and symbolism in fashion film, through case studies of different fashion film directors’ work. London Project: Unheard - My London Project was a series of creative writing workshops with teenagers from a Hackney estate.
Kata Ovari
kata.ovari@hotmail.com
Dissertation: Are contemporary urban and cultural policies set out by New Labour failing to maintain a sustainable Creative Economy? - Examining the lasting effects of New Labour’s cultural and urban policies on the contemporary Creative Economy in London with a focus on the Olympicopolis project. Does trust in our built environment influence our cultural development? London Project: Dear Poor People is a satirical magazine discussing issues inherent to London living. For all those struggling in London, it is an attempt to use humour as a weapon to help get through the day by mocking daily injustice. With a new theme every two weeks, the first issue focuses on the creative industries. The cartoon featured illuminates the culture of unpaid work in the sector.
Emma Ronn
emmakristinaronn@gmail.com
Dissertation: On the Road and On the Run: an exploration of how the American road movie genre endures and adapts at different points in film history. This dissertation explores how the American road movie genre endures and adapts at different points in film history, specifically by looking at three different road movies in detail: Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969), Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991) and Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2014). In addition, the thread that runs through all three chapters is the key role of the American landscape in these films. London Project: A Night at the Kilburn State ‘A Night at the Kilburn State’ is a project attempting to temporarily revive the Gaumont State Theatre in Kilburn for the purpose of bringing this iconic venue back to its former glory for one special night of live music and entertainment.
Ella Lu Wolf
ella.wolf@hotmail.de
Dissertation: Between collaboration and co-optation: Is contemporary art post-critical art? - In contemporary technocapitalism, the convergence of ubiquitous digital technologies and neoliberal economics seems to have erased distinctions between culture and consumption, or between life and labour. What consequences does this condition have on the notion of criticality in contemporary art? Can we find new forms of agency in affirmative practices? London Project: 1Granary Store - A digital hybrid at the intersection of a web store, an online gallery and a virtual project space. Both an art project and a business start-up, 1Granary Store considers the language of branding as the universal language of the contemporary – thereby challenging dichotomies between content and commerce, critique and affirmation, theory and practice.
Alysha Lee
alyshalee3012@gmail.com
Dissertation: Speculation In Action: Re-evaluating contemporary ontology in a network of things through the practice of Mark Leckey - In an age of ambient ecology and embedded technologies, everybody objects that were once considered to be the Other appear to be alive and are now affirming their agency into our presence using their animistic properties through these new technologies. This dissertation explores this phenomena — most commonly referred to in contemporary philosophical discourse as ‘object-oriented ontology’ — through the lens of contemporary artist Mark Leckey work, as a large body of his practice is devoted to the exploration and the epistemological limitations of the human mind. London Project: cosmo zine issue #1 — the culturepreneur How are we to understand labour in the contemporary art world today? What are some of the conditions that affect the way we work? Inspired by Britain’s austere conditions, my London Project sought to explore the precarity of contemporary life, in particular that of the artist, gallerist, curator and art writer through interviews with young gallerists and artists, an academic essay, visuals and a manifesto. This issue’s title ‘the culturepreneur’ (a hybrid of culture + entrepreneur) represents an apt description for the cultural practitioner today who is expected to adapt to previously unprecedented modes of working such as a sense of (self-) entrepreneurship in order to survive under conditions of neoliberalism; while the name of the zine, ‘cosmo’, refers to the etymology of the term based on increasing discourse on art in a globalised world, and how the precariousness of everyday life might be the catalyst for this.
Sophie McBride
sophiemorganamcbride@gmail.com
Dissertation: Gender Representation in Pedro Almodovar’s Early Cinema as a Subversion of Francoist Catholic Ideology - My dissertation argued that the gender representation in Pedro Almodovar’s early cinema is a subversion of the gender paradigms Franco disseminated throughout his dictatorship. This body of work applied contextualisation to the films Pepi, Luci, Bom y Otra Chicas Monton (1991), What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) exploring the ways gender has been represented in these works in order to exemplify how Almodovar is readdressing Franco-catholic ideology in democratic Spain. London Project: The Sisterhood - The Sisterhood is a series of four books for children. Each book tells the story of a woman from a Pre Raphaelite painting that is housed within the 1840 room of Tate Britain. In The Sisterhood each woman is given her own voice to retell her story and reclaims her identity, becoming her own saviour, which is a powerful and important message for young readers.
Nour Alsaleh
nour.alsaleh@live.com
Dissertation: Has the diffusion of street-styles into luxury fashion and facilitation if accessible luxury democratized fashion in the twenty-first century?” It compares luxury fashion today abd during the 18th/19th centuries. The paper mainly explores causes of such shifts in fashion and luxury. London project: I have written a project proposal for Netabporter to collaborate with Ace Hotel during London Fashion Weeks to provide luxury tourists with an alternative shopping experience and to make them aware of what East London has to offer, especially cnsidering that for this segment, Mayfair and Knightsbridge still remain key destinations during their London Visits while retail spaces are becoming scarse.
Anastasiya Shapovalova
anastasia_shapovalova@live.com
Dissertation: Alternative exhibition spaces: Une raison d’etre - The dissertation aimed to examine the role that the alternative exhibition spaces have played in the art spheres of the United Kingdom and United States between 1960’s and now. Providing a framework by charting and analysing their history, determining the origin of their transformation and exploring the effect the alternative spaces have had on several bodies (material, human and institutional) I questioned the reason of their existence and prominence throughout decades London Project: DiSculpture - A map based App that is able to locate and give knowledge of public art in and around London. You can enable geolocations to receive push notifications if you pass something new. You can also explore the catalogue of all known sculptures, with detailed photos and information, which will also be searchable by tags. QR codes will be attached to sculptures in the city and will direct you to the correct page within the app. The app will also permit you to curate your own sculpture trails.
Nicole Tatschl
nicole.tatschl@live.at
Dissertation: What was the impact of the YBA’S on the art world both locally and globally? - In my dissertation I have focused on the changes in the art world and scene since the arrival of the young British artists in the early 1990s. Consequently, what this thesis considers is whether this generation of artists have played a significant role in shaping the art world into what it is today and what impact art fairs and auction houses had. London Project: Gentri Fry Up Publication - For my London Project I have created a publication called Gentri Fry Up. In Gentri Fry up my main aim was to focus on the recent changes in Peckham. I have also focused on the relationship of art and gentrification via photographs, interviews and articles.
Aravin Sandran
aravinarvk@gmail.com
Dissertation: What is the role of art during a state of social crisis? The case of activist art, engaged aesthetics and passive documentary within the art community in the United States of America during the AIDS decade (1981 1991) - My dissertation critically contemplates the role of art during a state of social crisis by interrogating case studies of activist art, engaged aesthetics and passive documentary within the art community in the United States of America between 1981 and 1991 when the acquired immunodeficiency virus, or AIDS, was at its cataclysmic prime. The narrative retells this turbulent time in human history when art was critical, engaged, and took action to affect social structures and political perception. The prevailing hope is that, through an acute deconstruction of some of the key characters who were involved and controversial events that took place as well as their ramifications, the story of AIDS can serve as a reminder of the power of art – to not only provoke the eye, but also mobilize the heart and mind – and therein, the art community’s social and cultural responsibility in contributing to positive change in mainstream systems and public consciousness during a state of social crisis. London Project: Fuck The World - My London Project is about young people in London who have been transformed by a digitally and technologically accelerated world. Their metamorphosis into adulthood, plagued with judgment and curiosity, is captured here in a series of penetrating portraiture and elucidating essays that combine on-theground, first-hand research with cultural and emotional sensitivity as it investigates how these individuals are in raw and open engagement with each other and the world around them. From the creative campuses of art colleges to the euphoric night-lights of Dalston, this photo book delivers a social and cultural documentation of how a generation is being shaped today and tomorrow.
Imogen Harland
kieron.marchese@hotmail.co.uk
Dissertation: Precarious Babes: A study of the post-fordist labour conditions of the CamGirl in the global north - A study of the various forms of labour that the female online sex worker undertakes, my dissertation argued for the inclusion of sex work in the post-Marxist discussions of how labour conditions in the West have been affected by changing technologies. London Project: A YouTube channel dedicated to giving an alternative tour of London, by looking at topics such as animals or heights in London. The videos are made in a style that blends documentary filmmaking and chatty YouTube based video blogging.
Rebecca Kimpton
beckykimpton@live.com
Dissertation: Beyond The Museum: How has the Tate Gallery contributed to urban regeneration around the UK? London Project: Business proposal for ‘The Medium’ - An online arts consultancy and e-commerce platform for commercial clients looking to purchase existing or commission bespoke artwork from a selection of London’s leading art graduates.
Adriana de Freitas Rodrigues adrianaxrodrigues@gmail.com
Dissertation: Monumental Discourses: Exploring and Testing Dialogues and Discourses of Self-Representation of Monuments on Eberstraße in ‘New Berlin’ - The dissertation explores discourses of self-representation as well as the discussions that surround four monuments in Berlin, located on Ebertsrasse: the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Sony Center. The exploration of these discourses are then understood in relation to the ‘critical reconstruction’ plan executed by city planners during the late 90’s and early 00’s to transform the urban landscape into ‘New Berlin.’ The author puts the discourses and discussions to test by visiting the monuments, and unveiling their performativity in ‘New Berlin.’ London Project: On/Site: a site-specific podcast - On/Site is a site-specific podcast that explores London’s urban fabric through reframing the work of acclaimed artists, in order to create sites of reflection about art. Functioning as a framing device, the podcast provides coordinates of sites (where the podcast must be listened to) that serve as an abstracted representation of an artwork, providing a unique way of being present in the city and experiencing the banality urban spaces. What is at stake when the podcast is played is a conversation between the artist (author of the artwork the abstraction points to) and the curator for the series. Each episode has a different location and artwork to explore, and each series has a different theme. Series One is London’s Pavements + Land Art.
Simonne Ng
ng.simonne@gmail.com cargocollective.com/simonneng
Dissertation: Architectural curating in museums has always concerned itself with issues of (not limited to but including) communicating the architectural design process that is exhibited, the messages about architecture that is conveyed to the general public, its engagement with the audiences and its authenticity as a medium. It has always been an issue for curators to convey the full intention in architecture exhibitions through to the audiences - both professional and the layman. In this paper, three different case studies that used different approaches to curating were explored. Together with a couple of theories, this study seeks to propose several communication methods to improve the degree to which messages in architecture exhibitions are successfully conveyed to general audiences. London Project: Propinquity - With the recent focus on “Starchitecture�, Propinquity is a project with aims to respond and resolve to the phenomenon of alienation between people and iconic buildings. Through a series of organised events, workshops, talks and communal dinners hosted in a temporary multi-disciplinary space, Propinquity seeks to engage the diverse community of East London around the iconic Olympic Stadium. This project creates collaboration, social interaction and engagement between local communities in various trades, in hopes of fostering the public’s sense of belonging and familiarity around buildings and spaces. As London faces the biggest building boom today, drawing locals towards iconic structures and breathing social life into the built environment allows vitality to generate and brings liveability to a city
Maryam Pahlavan
maryam.pahl@gmail.com
Dissertation: Contemporary Art from the Middle East; Dismantling the Established Perception - For the dissertation I’ve looked at three artists from the Middle East; Shirin Neshat, Tarek Al-Ghoussein and Mona Hatoum. I’ve examined the way these artists utilise their art to dismantle the established perceptions about themselves, their countries, and the Middle Eastern region as a whole. London Project: The London Project investigated the various experiences that come with being a student in the University of the Arts London. As a result, a web based platform was formed that includes photographs, poems, short stories, and art works. Anything that allows students to convey their thoughts and feelings about living and studying in London. The London Project gives students of the UAL an ability to express themselves in a way that they know best, and get to know each other in a more intimate way.
Sara Esteves
sarahelenage@gmail.com
Dissertation: A study on the creation of an alternative reality in contemporary photography. The dissertation analysed the works of Wall, Lorca-Dicorcia, Gursky and Demand as they established themselves in contemporary art due to their use of staged photography, with the photographer acting as director of a production, and digital manipulation, with the adaptation of the real world in order to build a new one. London Project: The London Horror Screenings - A celebration of London as the backdrop for horror films between 1931 and 1957 in form of a proposed two week screening programme in seven different hidden locations relevant to the characters. It focused on films like Werewolf of London (1935) to Dracula (1931) that specifically say that the narrative is set in London leading to a further study on why the city seems to be the favourite location for the creation of monsters, mad scientists and the supernatural. The event is also accompanied by it’s own illustrated publication acting as a guide to the birth of the horror genre in this city.
Kieron Marchese
kieron.marchese@hotmail.co.uk
Dissertation: To what extent does the work and persona of Marina Abramović reflect contemporary brand value and consumer sensibility? - Tracing developments in branding, this study uses the artist as a source for consumer research to analyse the placement of value in brand practice that in the 21st century stretches across all institutional spheres. From Warhol to Abramović an art-historical approach explores the relationship between brand-makers and their tools to map traditional marketing techniques as well as new innovative ways of engaging audiences. In doing so the power of he myth as well as mechanisms that drive notions of experience, authenticity and transformation are investigated using economic readings, business literature and cultural theory. London Project: introspect. - Offering a contemporary route into the topic of mental health introspect, a new publication, challenges the stigma surrounding anxiety and depression by providng a platform for the creative musings of young adults. Filing itself under mind culture the curation of its content aims to universalise this topic by sitting itself apart from the didactic material that already exists. In doing so introspect encourages a collective mentality through which the often problematic art historical perspective of mental illness is addressed and the reduction of this subject to pure aesthetic is challenged.
introspect.
promoting mind culture & creativity, exploring human experience.
issue 01
Maria Livia Pappagallo
marialiviapappagallo@yahoo.com
Dissertation: It analyses the fashion figure of the creative director, how the fashion press constructs the icon around it to then use it as an agent of fashion’s power. Firstly, it studies the postmodern social issues of leadership and identity and the fashion world and luxury brands as systems of cultural control. Secondly, it analyses the creative director as personality and practice, how it responds to the social needs of leadership and authority and how the stress on the conceptualisation of its practice renders luxury brands closer to art, in accordance with luxury fashion’s aim at acquiring a greater symbolic authority and authenticity. Finally, these theoretical ideas are applied to the case study of Raf Simons. London Project: ‘The Instaexperiment: London’ - is an installation hosting a social experiment, showcased at Triennale, in Milan, during Fuorisalone at 2017 Salone del Mobile. It examines the processes involved in the construction of Instagram users’ identities. 9 London Instagram users, who do not know each other, will portray each other’s Instagram identity in a 3D domestic space. Each of the 9 Users will be given a specific room to portray another specific user in: how the boxes are staged should reflect the impression that the ‘decorator’ has of the other user, according to how this last one appears from his/her Instagram. The installation will be the sequence of the 9 rooms resulting out of this collaboration. The aim of the experiment is to prove that nowadays identities, influenced by the online world, are the result of social collaboration.
Louella Mae Ogle Ward lmow2012@hotmail.com
Dissertation: The Artist’s Role in Society: A Case Study of the artist organisation Strange Cargo and their impact within Folkestone - Based within Folkestone, Strange Cargo have developed a long-term embedded practice which responds to the social environment. By analysing their participatory approach to making art in the public realm I illustrate how artists can play a significant role in society having an impact upon the physical, cultural, social and political landscape of place. London Project: Development of not-for profit art organisation Land(e) scape - Land(e)scape offer an alternative model of art education for schools and other educational organisations in South East London. Through flexible and imaginative collaborations between students, young artists and schools in the area, Land(e)scape offer educational art projects which both help to support developing artists and promote equal access to arts and culture for pupils.
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